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COPYRIGHT DEPOSE 



PREPARE 

TO MEET 

THY GOD 



By 

S. P. LONG, A. M. 

Pastor of The First Lutheran Church, Mansfield. Ohio. 



COLUMBUS, OHIO: 
The F. J. Heer Printing Co. 






LIBRARY of CONGRESS 
Two Copies Received 

JAN 5 1909 

CopyriKiU Entry rt 
cuss Qu X^No, 



•"* COPY 3. 



Copyright 1908 
By REV. S. P. LONG, A. M. 



DEDICATED 

TO THE MEMORY OF 



MY PARENTS, WHO RAISED CHILDREN, NOT FOR THIS 
WORLD, BUT FOR HEAVEN; 

THE REV. KARL F. KUNERT, WHO BAPTIZED ME 
ACCORDING TO GOD'S COMMAND; 

THE LATE REV. J. DORNBIRER, WHOSE IMPRESSIVE 
CONFIRMATION SERMON I COULD REPEAT TO-DAY; 

AMOS HOMAN, THE CHRISTIAN SHOEMAKER, WHO TAUGMT 

ME HOW TO MAKE SHOES, BUT HELD MY MIND TO 

THE BIBLE ON HIS BENCH TILL I LEFT IT 

TO PERSUADE A DYING WORLD TO 

WEAR GOSPEL SHOES; 

PROF. J. C. SAMPLE, OF GREENTOWN ACADEMY, WHO 

HAD THE FACULTY OF TEACHING EVEN A 

BOY THAT HE DID NOT KNOW MUCH; 

THE FACULTIES OF CAPITAL UNIVERSITY AND PHILA- 
DELPHIA SEMINARY, BUT FOR WHOSE TEACH- 
INGS AND ENCOURAGEMENT THIS LITTLE 
MESSAGE, PREPARED IN EIGHTEEN 
HOURS, WOULD NEVER HAVE 
BEEN PUBLISHED. 



Contents 



By S. P. LONG 



1. Prepare to Meet Thy God 

Cloth, 35 Cents, Postpaid 

2. The Way Made Plain 

Cloth, $1.00, Postpaid 

J. The Wounded Word 

Cloth, 35 Cents, Postpaid 

4. The Great Gospel 

Half-leather, $2.50, Expressage Prepaid 

5. The Eternal Epistle 

Half-leather, $2.50, Expressage Prepaid 



MANSFIELD, OHIO, OR ANY 
LUTHERAN BOOK STORE 



CONTENTS, 

SERMON I. 

; PAGE 

There Is a God 17 

SERMON II. 
God Is Your God 29 

SERMON III. 
God Finds You Lost 38 

SERMON IV. 
God Has Salvation For You 50 

SERMON V. 
God Reasons With You 61 

SERMON VI. 

God Warns You 72 

(7) 



Preface 



PREFACE 



IT was said of Baxter that he could set the world on fire 
while Orton was lighting a match. If Dr. Luther 
were living today, he would set the world on fire 
more than many of his followers. It would pain him to know 
how few souls some long-established Lutheran congregations 
had won for Christ from the highways and hedges. I love 
"My church, my dear old church" and God loves her; and, 
with her truth, she can win more souls than any other; 
but she cannot do it by expecting the spiritually dead to 
run after her; by having ministers who will please the 
devil by not entering, or not leaving their study; by bap- 
tizing and confirming only her own children; by thinking 
that the whole mission problem would be solved, if only we 
had more money; by having few family altars; by having 
congregations which expect their pastors to do all the work 
in God's vineyard ! The Lutheran Church, with her pure 
doctrine, could set the world on fire if every Lutheran 
would obey Christ's command: "Go — Work — Today — In 
My Vineyard!" 

Hannah wept because she was childless. Oh that every 
Lutheran who has not tried to win a spiritual child for 
heaven, would cry: "Oh my God, I am ashamed and blush 
to lift up my face to Thee, my God!" Ezra. 9, 6. 

"He that believeth shall not be damned," says your 
Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. You believe this. Pray 
tell me how can you let your relative, friend, neighbor, or 
enemy, ignorantly live in his sins and be damned? If he 



12 PREFACE. 

wanted the truth, he could find it in God's Word and many- 
good books taken from that Word; but he does not go to 
the house of God and does not read God's Word and does 
not care about the future. Shall you let him perish? Not 
so long as there is life and hope. We must not get angry 
at the dead because they do not move, nor must we let 
those who are ignorant of God's Word perish in their sins. 
To aid you in helping your pastor to gather in souls from 
a perishing world to take instructions in the saving doctrines 
of God's Word, this little message has made its appearance. 
It has no apology to offer for its existence. David's brothers 
said he could not battle with Goliath: he did not dispute 
with them, but showed them that he could by holding 
Goliath's head in his hand. Critics may find many faults 
with this little message; my only reply is that I have just 
confirmed thirteen adults whom God by it brought to His 
altar on its first mission, and the financial aid of a Christian 
woman has taken it from the press. Go forth, then, little 
child of prayer; and, by the help of God, open the eyes 
of the blind till they can find peace in the eyes of their cru- 
cified Lord! S. P. Long. 
1238 Wesley avenue, Columbus, Ohio. March 20th, 1894. 



Preface to the Second Edition 



THE truth does not change. After a four months' 
visit to a thousand homes, at times in the company 
of such noble critics as Dr. Loy and the Christian 
Press, this little child has put on a new garment and 
added new words to its vocabulary; but it is the same 
child. It has been nurtured at the breast of God's Word. 
It is proud of its mother and now starts out a second time 
in God's name to introduce her into many more homes of a 
blind, perishing world. This child was not born to sleep, 
nor to let sleep; when it has spoken to you, introduce it 
to the neighbors. It will not harm the saved; it will help 
the lost! S. P. Long. 

July 20th, 1894. I 



Preface to the Fourth Edition 



The third edition of this book was published by the 
Lutheran Book Concern before the author knew it. Any one 
reading this book should immediately read "The Way Made 
Plain" by the same author. Our only aim is to lead many 
to Christ. S. P. Long. 

Mansfield, Ohio, 1908. 



Prepare to Meet Thy God 



Prepare to Meet Thy God 

AMOS 4, J2 



L THERE IS A GOD 

HE THAT HATH EARS TO HEAR LET HIM 
hear/' Matt. 11, 15. God gave you 
ears to hear and He gave you hearing 
to listen to Him. He now says to you : "Pre- 
pare to meet thy God." Many will be saved. 
"Many are called but few are chosen." Matt. 
22, 14. "He that believeth not shall be damned." 
Mark 16, 16. "And the smoke of their torment 
ascendeth up forever and ever." Rev. 14, 11. 
Why is it that men will be lost? Could any man 
be such a fool as to run into the eternal flames 
of his own accord? Let us see. Is Satan the 
cause? Satan can tempt us, but we need not 
yield. Is God the cause? It cannot be. He 
says: "Prepare to meet thy God." Oh man, 
you may argue yourself into hell, but you can- 
not find an argument in hell, nor on earth, nor 
in heaven, to prove that God wanted you to be 
eternally lost. No man will be lost because he 
wants to be lost but all the lost will be lost be- 

2 17 



18 PREPARE TO MEET THY GOD. 

cause they will not listen to their God and pre- 
pare to meet Him. 

There are many reasons why you should pre- 
pare to meet your God. Satan does not want you 
to prepare ; the world does not want you to pre- 
pare; your own sinful flesh has no desire to pre- 
pare ; all the powers of hell say : "Don't make 
a fool of yourself; don't believe the preachers; 
don't believe the Bible; you are too busy now 
to think of religious things; enjoy the world; 
be a man, and let the future take care of itself!" 
Oh man, the very fact that the powers of hell are 
opposed to your preparing to meet your God, 
should make you tremble for not already having 
prepared! 

This moment you are standing between hea- 
ven and hell. A trumpet from hell blasts into 
one ear: "Don't prepare to meet thy God!" 
and a trumpet from heaven blasts into the other 
ear: "Prepare to meet thy God!" Your duty 
is clear — either trumpet should drive you to 
God. God's short message of five words gives six 
strong reasons why you should prepare to meet 
your God ; and the first is this : 

THERE IS A GOD. 

O God, Father, Son and Holy Ghost, Cre- 
ator of the universe, Savior of the world, Spirit 



THERE IS A GOD. 19 

of the new birth, this is Thy message, and I am 
only Thy messenger. The work is Thine. Open 
the eyes of the blind! Awaken the spiritually 
dead! Wield the sword of the Spirit! Take the 
hammer of the law and strike! Immortal God, 
speak to the immortal souls of dying men, and 
show them eternal death and the great deliverer. 
The harvest is ripe; the laborers are few; Lord 
of the harvest, send forth laborers, and help us 
to gather in the sheaves. It is not Thy will that 
we should perish; drive this truth home to the 
hearts of a perishing world. Bless this message ; 
and now, in Thy name, O Jesus, I east out the 
net for souls. Gather Thou them in. Amen. 

If there were no God, you would not need 
to prepare to meet Him ; but there is a God ; you 
know it; you know that He knows you; yon 
know that only He knows Himself; and you 
know that He knows best how to make Himself 
known to you. 

1. I say you know there is a God. I should 
think it just as necessary to prove to you that 
there is a sun and a moon as to prove that there 
is a God. Every nation, creation and Revela- 
tion tells you that there is a God. 

Every nation on earth worships the true 
God, or false gods. The false gods of Egypt, of 
Asia, of Europe, of America, of Australia, of all 



20 PREPARE TO MEET THY GOD. 

the islands of the seas though they have eyes and 
see not, ears and hear not, tongues and speak 
not, are loud-speaking monuments in harmony 
with the living voice of Christianity : There is 
a God ! How could there be a false god, if there 
were no true One? Every people acknowledge 
that there is a God, though by reason of the 
blindness which sin has wrought, not all know 
the true God. 

All creation says, there is a God. The old 
clock at the wall cannot talk and yet it speaks. 
It tells you what time it is. It tells you when to 
gO; to bed, when to rise, when to eat, when to go 
to church. It tells you that there was a clock- 
maker in this world, and that he was no igno- 
ramus. Sit down, O man, and think where you 
are. You are sitting on a wheel so large that 
the Eocky Mountains and the Alps are but cogs 
and you are riding through space at the rate of 
over seventeen miles per minute. The sun and the 
moon and the stars are but wheels of God's great 
clock. "He that hath ears to hear let him hear!" 
Shall the little clock on the wall talk to you, and 
will you not listen to the great clock of the uni- 
verse? If your mind cannot hear the voice of 
those golden wheels in space, or of the earth on 
.which you stand, then lift up your foot and 
examine that little blade of grass on which you 



THERE IS A GOD. 21 

just stepped and listen to its little tender fibers 
as it tells you : God has woven me. Nay, sit 
down and feel your own pulse and the beating 
of your heart and let them tell you there is a 
God. 

You know it best from the Revelation given 
in Holy Scriptures. It is true that God has 
spoken in creation. "The heavens declare the 
glory of God; and the firmament showeth His 
handiwork. Day unto day uttereth speech and 
night unto night showeth knowledge." Ps. 19, 
1. 2. But God tells us this and more in His 
Eevelation. God takes no pleasure in our igno- 
rance. He wants us to know that He is the 
Father, Son and Holy Ghost; the same God who 
in the beginning created the heavens and the 
earth; the same God who said: "Let us make 
man in Our image;" the same God whom the 
angels praised by saying : "Holy, holy, holy, the 
Lord of hosts; the whole earth is full of His 
glory;" the same God who wants us to be bap- 
tized in the name of the Father, Son and Holy 
Ghost. 

You may travel through every nation, scan 
all creation and search the entire Eevelation and 
you will find nothing and no one who will say 
there is no God but that one lying being — the 
fool. Ps. 14, 1. Even the father of lies, that old 



22 PREPARE TO MEET THY GOD. 

serpent in Eden, was too cunning to deny the 
existence of God. The only creature whom he 
ever found on earth that would stand up and say 
there is no God, was the fool. 

2. There is a God, and you know that He 
knows you. Eevelation calls Him "the only wise 
God." That God is wise you know. But how 
shall ignorant man describe the wisdom of "the 
only wise God?" This much is certain: He 
knows the universe. God might have formed the 
entire mass of matter into one vast world. Who 
should have hindered Him? Then there would 
have been no sun, moon, nor stars, nothing to 
delight the eye and excite our admiration. God 
in His wisdom divided matter into innumerable 
worlds and we know that He knows them all. 
But just as we know that God knows all about 
yonder heavens and the universe, so we know 
that Me knows this earth. The same God who 
created the worlds knows every world. I take 
two instruments into my hand: with the tele- 
scope I look into the heavens and the vast worlds 
tell me that I am standing on a grain of sand in 
this great universe; with the microscope I look 
at a grain of sand and behold a universe in it. 
The one tells me how insignificant this world is ; 
the other tells me how immense it is: both tell 
me that the wisdom of God is in all things. It 



THERE IS A GOD. 23 

has never entered your mind that God does not 
know this earth. 

You know, too, that if God knows this earth, 
He knows man. Should He create light and be 
blind? Should He separate the land and the 
waters and not notice the harvests? Should 
He hang up the lamps of day and night and not 
notice the animals in the waters, in the sky and 
on the land? Should God scoop out the valleys, 
rear the mountains, chain the waters, plant gar- 
dens, store away fuel, light, and jewels, and 
finally create man as the lord of this world and 
not know him? This earth with all its fulness 
was prepared for man and not man for the 
earth. If man had been an ox God would not 
have created flowers. God knows man, and you 
know it. 

And if God knows man, He knows you. You 
are just as much an object of His attention as 
the universe, the earth, or the human race. 
Matt. 6, 24-34. In God's universe there is noth- 
ing just like you. You are yourself and nobody, 
or nothing else. You never make the mistake 
to take some one else to be yourself. Should 
you know more than God? If it were possible 
that everything should pass out of existence ex- 
cept you and your God, He would know you no 
better than He does now. You may think that 



24 PREPARE TO MEET THY GOD. 

we do not know your sins, but you know that 
God does; you may not know them yourself, 
but God does. God now stands before you face 
to face and says : "Prepare to meet thy God." 

3. This leads me to a third thought : Yon 
kaoiv that God only knows Himself. A learned 
Jewish rabbi in London relates a death-bed scene 
of a very aged Israelite. He gathered his sons 
around him and told them of a fearful dream he 
had the night before. He dreamed that he was 
dying. An angel appeared holding a garment, 
saying : "Without this garment you cannot enter 
heaven." Then he took the garment and tried to 
open the first fastening and could not, but found 
the words written, "Know God," he tried the sec- 
ond and found, "Who can know God?" the third 
and found, "None can know God but God," and 
without ever finding out how to open the gar- 
ment he passed into eternity. "Behold, God is 
great and we know Him not." Job. 36, 26. "Thy 
judgments are a great deep." David. Ps. 36, 
6. If that dying Israelite had believed God in- 
stead of trying to know Him, the garment of 
Christ's righteousness would have opened and 
with it he could have gone home to the Father. 
How should you, who do not know yourself, 
know your God? You say you cannot under- 
stand the Trinity. Nor can any other man. It 



THERE IS A GOD. 25 

was not necessary for God to reveal unto us 
what we knew. Be satisfied if God understands 
the Trinity. Only He knows Himself. You 
think you understand His attributes, but you do 
not. You know that God is good, holy, loving, 
merciful, just and righteous; but how can you 
comprehend how good, how holy, how loving, 
how merciful, how just, and how righteous God 
is? 

You say you understand His creation. You 
do not understand any more about this little 
earth alone than a gnat on an elephant's back 
understands his structure and the beating of his 
heart. The human race has never seen half of 
the living creatures on this earth. There are 
over eight thousand species of the beetle alone. 
It is probable that the greatest telescope has not 
yet reached the great stars of the universe. Only 
God knows His creation. 

You say you think you understand His 
Providence. You may possibly understand why 
a wagon wheel rattles and how some people can 
sleep on an Atlantic express, but if you can un- 
derstand how God keeps all bodies in perpetual 
motion and hurls you through space at the rate 
of over a quarter of a mile every second and all 
this with less noise than you would make in roll- 
ing a marble, I wish you would begin to explain. 



26 PREPARE TO MEET THY GOD. 

The truth of it is by your trying to under- 
stand and know God, you tried to make a god of 
yourself. "For vain man would be wise ; though 
he be born like a wild ass's colt." Job 11, 12. 
Away with gods made by man ! Away with your 
foolish questions and listen! There is a God 
who only knows Himself and He asks you to 
prepare to meet Him. 

4. But there is one thing more that you 
know : You know that God knew best how to 
make Himself known to you. While only God 
can know Himself, He does not keep all knowl- 
edge to Himself. He wants us to know of Him, 
even if we can not know Him. 

Foolish questions are sometimes asked. 
"Why did not God do this and that?" "Why did 
He not make Himself known in this way and 
that way?" Dear soul, where were you when 
He planned the universe? Why did you not tell 
Him the better way? Worm of this earth, since 
when did God need your counsel? Is there no 
room for shame in your hardened heart? God 
who knows better than you do how to make Him- 
self known to you saw fit to give you His Word 
by inspiration. "Holy men of God spake as they 
were moved by the Holy Ghost." I shall show 
you hereafter that God speaks to you and tells 
you to prepare to meet Him. Now I want to 



THERE IS A GOD. 27 

impress upon you that fact that God knows best 
how to bring that message to you. You may not 
understand it; there are some more things you 
do not understand, but you need not understand 
why God did not make Himself known in some 
other way. Do you tell the worms why you 
plow? Do you ask your infant how you shall 
provide for it? You know that God knows best 
how He wants you to hear of Him. 

God made Himself known to us in a special 
manner by His incarnation. "God was in Christ." 
2 Cor. 5, 19. "In the beginning was the Word 
and the Word as with God and the Word was 
God. And the Word was made flesh and dwelt 
among us.' 7 John 1, 1, 14. God became man. 
He put on a garment of human flesh and bone 
and laid one hand into the hand of the human 
race and with the other pointed to the Father 
and said: "I and My Father are One." John 
10, 30. The Father looked at Jesus' human 
nature in the Jordan and at His divine nature 
on the Mount of Transfiguration and said : "This 
is My beloved Son in whom I am well pleased: 
hear ye Him." Search the Scriptures and the 
life of Christ and you will find how the all-wise 
God was pleased to make Himself known to 
you. 

Take this thought home with you this even- 



28 PREPARE TO MEET THY GOD. 

ing: "There is a God. I know there is a God. 
I know that He knows me; O my sinful Soul, 
God knows me ! O ye liars and enemies, ye have 
tried to ruin my character, but God knows me. 
Only God knows Himself. I do not know myself 
very well, nor God. God knows Himself and 
me, too. He knows that I have no excuse before 
Him not to prepare to meet Him." 

Dear soul, you never will learn to think 
rightly, till you constantly stand on this solid 
foundation stone : There is a God. I am never 
alone : there is a God. I cannot hide my sins : 
there is a God. I cannot bear my sins : there is 
a God. I cannot save myself: there is a God. 
The hypocrites in the church can neither save 
nor damn me : there is a God. I cannot always 
live ; this night my soul may be required of me : 
there is a God and I must prepare to meet Him ! 

"He that believeth and is baptized shall be 
saved, and he that believeth not shall be 
damned." Amen. 



IL GOD IS YOUR GOD 

YOU may not be God's child, but God is 
your God. God offers His grace to you. 

He has given His only Son to die for your 
sins. He asks you to believe in Him and be 
baptized and accept Him as your covenant God; 
but whether you accept Him or not, He will be 
your Judge and God. 

When you sin you sin against your God. Be 
you ever so rich, if you have not your God on 
His terms, you are very poor now; and, unless 
you accept Him yet, will be miserably, un- 
speakably, awfully poor in hell! Be you ever 
so poor, if you have accepted Christ in the Fa^ 
ther by the Holy Spirit, you are so rich that 
you possess God and He possesses you. May 
God, the Holy Spirit, drive this truth deep into 
your souls now: 

GOD IS YOUR GOD. 

If you know there is a God and that He is 
your God, you certainly will begin to take an 
interest in His loving command : "Prepare to 
meet thy God!" 

I shall now call your attention to this im- 

29 



30 PREPARE TO MEET THY GOD. 

portant fact : God has always been God of all; 
consequently your God. 

1. He was your God before He created the 
world. Some of you will never forget your re- 
cent visit to the Art Gallery in the World's Fair. 
What grand scenes! How valuable! But did 
you stop to think that the last touch of the ar- 
tist's brush on the canvas was the first touch on 
his mind? The picture was painted on his mind 
before it was painted on canvas. The purchasing 
of the canvas, paint, and brushes and much of the 
labor was but a preparation for the last central 
figure which was the first on the artist's mind. 
Now look at this world with its rivers, seas, lakes, 
oceans, valleys, hills, plains, mountains, clouds, 
skies, and heavenly lights. What a grand scene ! 
But is this the picture that God first had in 
Mind? Watch the Hand Divine as it finishes the 
picture : "Let us make man in Our image." "And 
the Lord God planted a garden eastward in 
Eden and there He put the man whom He had 
formed." Gen. 2, 10. "According as He hath 
chosen us in Him before the foundation of the 
world." Eph. 1, 4. God planted the garden in 
the midst of creation and placed man into that 
garden. And now the picture was finished, and 
man, first in God's mind, was the last to appear. 
All the rest of creation was but a preparation 



GOD IS YOUR GOD. 31 

for man. God was your God before He said: 
"Let there be light!" 

2. God was still God of all after sin entered 
this world. When Adam and Eve sinned and hid 
themselves, their God came and said: "Adam, 
where art thou?" And when He told the Satanic 
serpent that the seed of woman, Christ, should 
bruise his head, He clearly showed that He meant 
to remain the sinner's God. They had rejected 
Him, but He did not forever cast off the work 
of His hands. He meant to save the lost. He 
was still God, though they owned Him not. 
Adam and Eve were not only driven out of the 
garden of Eden, but it was their God who drove 
them out. When Cain killed Abel the blood 
of the latter cried to their God. Gen. 4, 10. Cain 
with his troubled conscience said to his God: 
"My punishment is greater than I can bear." 
Now, mark you, when Abel was in his grave 
and Cain was a banished murderer, God was 
still the Lord even of those who had disowned 
Him. 

3. Let us pass on to Noah's time; and God 
is still God of all. Then God's children did 
just as many do now : they married heathen and 
became heathen themselves: Gen. 6, 2. Even 
after God grew impatient with their wickedness, 
He was willing to bear with them 120 years, 



32 PREPARE TO MEET THY GOD. 

What must His patience be ! He was God of all, 
but only one family was His children. What a 
family! The world thinks they are crazy, for 
they are building a large boat on dry ground. I' 
see the multitude of skeptics and scoffers. "Good 
morning/' says one, "when do you expect to fin- 
ish that boat? Captain Noah, if you think you 
can steer us safely across these fields, we would 
like to take an excursion next week up to the top 
of Mount Ararat." "Who is the biggest fool 
living to-day?" says a jester. All answer : "God's 
fool, Noah." "Why is Noah a wise lunatic?" says 
another. None can guess. "Because he is build- 
ing his own asylum." Thus I can see and hear 
them ridicule righteous Noah. Time passes on. 
No laughing and sneering now. It rains, it 
pours! The floods, the floods! To the ark, to 
the ark ! It is closed. To the mountains and to 
the hills! They cry,__they climb, they rave, they 
fall, they sink, they die! God's family is safe 
and God is the God of the dead : for He is still 
their Judge and they live before Him though they 
perish in the waters. He is Judge and they can- 
not escape His judgments. 

4. Let us pass on to Abraham^ time; and 
God is still God of all. Abraham's father wor- 
shipped idols. Twice God's people had forgotten 
Him. They all knew Him when He created 



GOD IS YOUR GOD. 33 

them; they all knew Him when they stepped out 
of Noah's ark and offered sacrifice. Gen. 8, 20. 
Twice He dealt with the whole world, and they 
would not remain faithful. Now He selected a 
representative, Abraham, the father of nations, 
and gave him the promise that in his seed all 
the nations of the earth should be blest. The 
question was not at all : "Is God the God of all?'' 
but rather: "How shall all know that God is 
their God?" and the all-wise God saw fit to 
choose a peculiar people to remind the world 
that He was their God. 

He says, verse eleven, "I have overthrown 
some of you, as God overthrew Sodom and Go- 
morrah." You remember how Abraham asked 
God to spare those cities, but he did not know 
as well as God did how wicked they were. Those 
cities would be standing to-day yet, if God had 
not been their God any more than they were His 
children. They would not believe their God, nor 
His servant, Lot; so He made them feel. When 
Lot escaped to the mountain, and his disobedient 
wife turned to salt, fire and brimstone made the 
wicked feel that God is their God to whom they 
must give account, though they refused to recog- 
nize Him as God, and He would not accept them 
as His children. 

3 



34 PREPARE TO MEET THY GOD. 

5. Let us pass on to Christ's time; and God 
is still God of all. When He was born the heav- 
enly host sang: "Glory to God in the highest 
and on earth peace, good will toward men." Let 
us analyze that angelic song. "This is all God's 
doings. Neither men nor angels would ever 
have thought of this. This thought did not or- 
iginate on earth. We did not learn our song here. 
We learned it in heaven. Glory to God in the 
highest. Earth has not been peaceful since God 
hurled that rebellious angel out of heaven. There 
has been no peace between nation and nation, be- 
tween man and man, nor between God and man. 
The Prince of Peace is now born. He wants to 
save every man. It is His will that none should 
be lost. God is God of all. Good will toward 
men." Though God is angry with the wicked 
every day, He still desires in Christ to save them 
all and be their covenant God through faith. 

Here let me call your attention to the divine 
law which God wrote on the heart of Adam, gave 
to Moses on Mount Sinai, and which Christ ful- 
filled. Does not God begin His law by saying: 
"I am the Lord thy God"? Does He not say: 
"Thou shalt not take the name of the Lord thy 
God, in vain"? Does He not say of all the com- 
mandments : "I, the Lord, thy God, am a jealous 
God"? Does not God sum up all the command- 



GOD IS YOUR GOD. 35 

ments of the first table of the law by saying: 
"Thou shalt love the Lord, thy God, with all thy 
heart, with all thy soul, with all thy mind and all 
thy strength"? Don't you hear God saying in 
His law to all nations and every man : "I am thy 
God, thy God, thy God" ? And when Christ was 
hanging on the cross fulfilling that law for every 
sinner; when afterwards He conquered death; 
when then He commanded His disciples to preach 
the Gospel in all the world to every creature, did 
He not clearly show that He was God of all? 
He wants all to be saved and has made provision 
for all. If you reject Him you do not dethrone 
Him. He still reigns as God and calls you to 
account. But Christ's time is forever ; therefore 
I come down, 

6. To the present time: and God is still 
your God. 

He never had so many messages. There was 
a time when only the very rich could possess a 
Bible. To-day God sends His Word in nearly 
400 languages to all the world. The Bible was 
the first book that ever existed, the first to be 
printed, and is the only book that has been upset 
every day, in part or whole, for nearly 3,000 years 
and yet stands always right side up. There are 
ten reasons why you should go bare-footed where 
there is one why you should not possess a Bible. 



36 PREPARE TO MEET THY GOD. 

You can buy God's Word now for 30 cents ; and, 
if you can not raise that amount, you can get one 
for nothing of your Bible Society. God sends 
you His message to-day in your own language 
and says: "Prepare to meet thy God." 

About 2681 years ago Amos was one of the 
few of God's messengers. To-day God has 38,500 
Lutheran pastors in this world and 75,000,000 
Lutherans have prepared to meet their God. In 
the United States alone God has 8,291 pastors 
in our church, preaching in 15 languages : "Pre- 
pare to meet thy God" ; and the Lutheran pastors 
of the world preach this in 90 languages. If ever 
there was a time that God showed that He was 
your God, it is now. The Bible is a picture gal- 
lery and time is helping us to see the pictures. 
The Old Testament contained over one hundred 
prophetic pictures of Christ before He was born. 
Isaiah drew a picture of this earth as round as 
a ball and held it up nearly 2,000 years before 
this world saw it. Isaiah 40, 22. Nahum drew 
a picture of the "lightning express" and held it 
up over 2,500 years before any one saw it. Chap. 
2, 3. 4. From the isle of Patmos John saw 
Benjamin Franklin discover electricity. Kev. 13, 
13. And there are two pictures on nearly every 
page of the Bible and the more you look into 
that Book the better you will see them : the one 



GOD IS TOUR GOD. 37 

is God and the other is yourself. Could you 
write the biography of a man to be born 2,000 
years hence? God wrote yours over 2,000 years 
ago. He tells you who and what you are better 
than you could yourself. If I showed you an 
album with my picture and another by my side 
you would naturally infer that there is a close 
relation between us. God has your picture in 
the Bible beside His, and below is written by the 
Holy Spirit : "Prepare to meet thy God." Again 
I conclude: "He that believeth and is baptized 
shall be saved, but he that believeth not shall 
be damned." Amen. 



III. GOD FINDS YOU LOST 

YOU would not think me unkind, dear hearer, 
if I, seeing your house burning and you 
asleep in it, should run and ring your 
door-bell; or, if necessary, break down the door 
and run to your bed and pull you out and save 
your life? Then why would you blame me for 
running and rapping at the door of your sleepy 
conscience and crying: "Prepare to meet thy 
God!" when 

GOD FINDS YOU LOST. 

The most important messages of this world 
are sent by the wire and made as short as pos- 
sible. The message I have to deliver to you now 
is so important that I do not know how to pre- 
pare it quickly enough, and how to make it short 
enough that you can receive it in time to prepare 
to meet your God. 

We are bound to the laws of the government 
as long as we live. A murderer is either acquit- 
ted, hanged, electrocuted, or imprisoned for life, 
though the murder was committed in a second, 
and though the murderer should live to be a hun- 
dred years old. A single sin, unforgiven will 

38 



I 



GOD FINDS YOU LOST. 39 

damn your soul as long as it lives — forever. Just 
as the murderer might say : "Is it right that I 
must be punished for life for a crime committed 
in a second?" just so you might say : "Is it right 
that I must be damned forever for the sins of a 
short life?" The answer to the first question is 
"Yes," by the civilized governments of the world, 
and the same answer is already given by your 
God. If God had not found Adam and the hu- 
man race lost by sin, He would not have promised 
a Savior and given His life for us and asked us to 
prepare to meet Him. I am not here to argue 
with you. What I say now you will believe, or 
soon feel. God found us all lost and, if we are 
in the same condition now as when we were born, 
He finds us lost now. Attention now, and notice 
the marks and the miseries of the lost when God 
finds them. 

1. First, the marks. This is the age of rea- 
son. We hear so much of "progress," and "en- 
lightenment" in this age, that it would seem as 
though our fathers must have had heads as small 
as a tea-cup and the hat of the twentieth cen- 
tury will be as large as a half-bushel. If we 
could buy the enlightenment of this century at 
its real value and sell it at our imaginary value, 
there would be no "hard times" financially. Rea- 
son will do to make machines, but it can never 



40 PREPARE TO MEET THY GOD. 

unravel the mysteries of the unsearchable God. 
Nevertheless, reason can give us a few marks 
of the lost. 

A lost sheep will wander around farther and 
farther and never find its way back itself. This 
is a mark of the lost. They have no straight line 
to follow. They circle from this opinion to that 
opinion. As the years roll by they wander off 
farther and farther from their God. 

A lost dog will sometimes lie down and re- 
fuse to start in any direction; he does not 
know which way to start. This is another mark 
of the lost. You have no object in life. You 
stay at home and eat and work and grumble. 
You do not care for anybody. You do not stand 
up for your rights. You let everything go as it 
will. You do not want to go to the house of 
God. You do not want to go to the Bible. You 
do not want to go to the altar of baptism. You 
do not want to go to the Lord's Supper. You do 
not want to go to prayer. Like a dog — a lost 
dog — you would rather lie down in your sins and 
take a whipping than move. Some lost animals 
will run without knowing where they are going. 
Do you not know why you are in this world? 
Do you know what you are living for? Do you 
not know where you are going after death? Have 
you no aim at all in life? Is eternity all dark 



GOD FINDS YOU LOST. 41 

to you? You need not go any further; you have 
got the mark in your own head — you are lost. 

If a man, on a new road, were certain he was 
going in the right direction and were not, the 
old settlers could tell him that he is lost. You 
may be certain in your mind that your unbiblical 
road will lead you to the eternal city above, but 
God and His angels and His saints and the 
damned know that you are lost and your reason 
must admit it if you observe the marks. 

Reason tells you that guides of all kinds are 
the result of being lost. Men have been lost in 
the wilderness — guides are there. Men have been 
lost on new roads — guide posts are there. Men 
have been lost in cities and have not been able 
to find certain houses — streets are named and 
houses are numbered to guide the lost. In every 
land there are temples, confessions, towers, 
creeds, servants of God, telling the world how to 
be saved. Pray, tell me, could any sane man im- 
agine true or false guides for the soul, if souls 
were not lost? 

But let me give you some better marks of 
the lost — the ma?*ks of Revelation — the marks 
ivhich God reveals unto us. On every lost soul 
God finds the mark, Unregeneration. It has been 
well said by Scriver that every person should be 
born three times : once into this world, then born 



42 PREPARE TO MEET THY GOD. 

again— regenerated — and finally out of this 
world into heaven. Our government demands 
that the President of the United States must be 
a born American. Do foreigners ever think of 
occupying our presidential chair? Never! Well, 
God demands of every one, born in this sinful 
world, that he be born again before he shall even 
see the kingdom of heaven. John 3, 3-5. Have 
you never been born from above? Have you 
never been baptized? Are you still in your sins? 
Has grace effected no change in your soul? 
Have you no love to God in your heart? Have 
you made no change at all since you were born? 
Have you no desire to work in God's vineyard? 
Are you still trusting in your own righteousness? 
Then, as sure as God cannot lie, you have the 
mark of the lost on you — unre generated. God 
takes an oath to this effect: "Verily, verily, I 
say unto thee except a man (Greek, ^<r; Latin, 
quis; German, jemcmb; a person, large or small, 
an hour or a century old) be born again, he can- 
not see the kingdom of God." John 3, 3. We 
are all born in sin; and therefore, must all be 
born again in righteousness, or we cannot enter 
heaven. Again He tells us how he can be 
born again. "Except a man be born of water and 
the Spirit, he cannot enter the kingdom of God." 
John 3, 5. The question is not at all whether 



GOD FINDS YOU LOST. 43 

little children without baptism would be damned, 
but the fact is they cannot enter heaven without 
regeneration, and we have not done our duty to 
them, even if God does save them in some ex- 
traordinary way, if we do not present them to 
Him to be born again by "water and Spirit," as 
He wants us to do. 

There is another mark that God finds on 
every lost soul : Unbelief. "He that believeth not 
shall be damned." Mark 16, 16. You think you 
are a good man because you treat your family and 
neighbors well, but how blind you are! If you 
treat me well and I know you abuse your mother, 
can I call you a good man? And if you treat your 
mother well and you slap her God and Savior in 
the face by not believing in Him, are you a good 
man? A rebel against heaven! a good man? 
Calling God a liar by denying His Word ! a good 
man? Ridiculing the only Savior of the world ! a 
good man? Teaching your children to be damned 
forever! a good man? You say, "There is a God," 
so does the devil! a good man? You must either 
accept the only Savior of man, Jesus Christ, as 
your Savior, or you bear the mark of the lost, 
Unbelief, and all your nonsense about being a 
good man will avail you nothing. 

But unbelief is a cancer that will break out in 
other sores and the result will be that God will 



44 PREPARE TO MEET THY GOD. 

find another big mark on the lost — Unclean. Some 
of you may possibly live in adultery or fornica- 
tion ; if so, you are lost. Some of you may wear 
fine clothes and make a fine appearance; but 
if your heart is unclean and full of lascivious- 
ness, you are lost. Some of you are fine Chris- 
tians on Sunday, but during the week you wor- 
ship another God with skeptics and scoffers — 
you are lost. Some of you believe more in pow- 
wows than you do in prayer — you are lost. 
Some of you hate God's children and never go 
to bed without wrath in your hearts — some morn- 
ing you will wake up in hell. Some of you have 
murdered and the world don't know it, but God 
does and you are lost. Some of you have never 
been in the drunkard's ditch, but you have been 
in his shoes and you are lost. All of you God 
wraps up into one bundle and labels it : Unclean. 
"Now the works of the flesh are manifest which 
are these : Adultery, fornication, uncleanness, 
lasciviousness, idolatry, witchcraft, hatred, 
variance, emulations, wrath, strife, seditions, 
heresies, envyings, murders, drunkenness, revel- 
lings, and such like of the which I tell you before, 
as I have told you in time past, that they which 
do such things shall not inherit the kingdom of 
God." Gal. 5, 19-21. Unregeneration, Unbelief 
and Unclean are God's three marks of the lost. 



GOD FINDS YOU LOST. 45 

2. Now, let me briefly tell you of the 
miseries of the lost. No, I cannot tell you, and 
I am glad I cannot. I hope you never will know. 
But some things I can tell you of the present and 
future miseries of the lost. May this alarm in 
the name of God awaken your conscience. 

Your present misery ! 

You are against yourself. It is bad enough 
to have enemies, but worse to be your own 
enemy. "O Israel, thou hast destroyed thyself!" 
Hos. 13, 9. I beg of you: heed the call of God! 
Do not stubbornly refuse to prepare to meet your 
God. Do not cast yourself into the burning- 
flames! Do not let your eternal moan be: "I 
might have been saved but would not." Do not 
tell me you are happy in your sins; you cannot 
be! 

All creation is against you. Paul says : "The 
whole creation groaneth and travaileth in pain." 
Eom. 8, 22. Why does it groan? Sinful, lost 
men are not making the right use of creation. 
Sinful men are looking down on the animals and 
abusing them as their gods while their groans 
are reaching heaven. Creation is against you, 
lost man! Look up to your Master in heaven 
and your horse will have a better master on earth. 
Everything is in disorder through sin that brings 
misery everywhere. 



46 PREPARE TO MEET THY GOD. 

God is against you. What shall I say? God 
is not only God, not only your God, but He finds 
you lost and condemned already. Do not say 
that God will condemn you — you are condemned. 
"He that believeth on Him is not condemned, but 
he that believeth not is condemned already, 
because he has not believed in the name of the 
only begotten Son of God." John 3, 18. In your 
lost condition you are positively against the Al- 
mighty God ; and He must be against you. Ezek. 
5, 8. His holy law is against you. His Gospel, 
given to save you, must be against you if you 
resist His grace and decline the call to accept 
your God. Mark 16, 16. Heaven's door must be 
closed against you. There might be some reason 
yet for one man to fight an army, but for you, 
poor sinner, lost sinner, condemned sinner, worm 
of the earth ; for you to lift up your hand against 
Almighty God — what shall I say? This : "It is 
a fearful thing to fall into the hands of the living 
God." God's bow is now stretched and aimed at 
you in your sins. He never fails to hit the mark ! 
He may let His arrow fly at any moment. What 
if it would fly now? 

The devil seems not to be against you. He is 
in perfect harmony with your sinful nature. He 
tells you that you are a noble man. He has you 
to make a chain and then praises you. He holds 



GOD FINDS YOU LOST. 47 

up to you the choicest of forbidden fruits and 
tells you to eat. But this seeming friend is the 
greatest enemy you have. In reality, he is the 
only enemy. All wickedness comes from him. At 
last he will take the chain you have made and 
bind you with it in hell. Like the boy who baits 
the trap with a choice apple to catch the rabbit 
and then cuts its throat, Satan holds up the for- 
bidden fruit to allure you away from God — to 
eternal death. This is the present misery of the 
lost. 

But the future misery will be much worse. 
But now I am in trouble. What tongue can tell 
the miseries of hell? Dives' parched tongue 
would like to tell, if it could find only a drop of 
water. Luke 16. I am glad that I cannot tell 
you the miseries of hell, and hope I shall never 
know more about them than now. This is not my 
trouble. My trouble is this : How shall I wake 
up your spiritually dead souls? If you lost a 
little money, a little home, an animal you loved, 
you would think it was terrible. If a little child 
were lost away from home, you would run, ring 
the bells, and weep; but, sitting over the very 
abyss of hell, you try to drown the bell of misery 
by a satanic laugh, or worse than that — sleep. 
You will not sleep in hell. When the rough-shod 



48 PREPARE TO MEET THY GOD. 

steed of pain begins his eternal gallop over your 
nervous roads, you will not sleep then. 

To this misery will be added the misery of 
others. I should not want to be in hell one hour 
free of punishment — the misery of the damned 
would make me miserable. God says: "There 
shall be weeping and gnashing of teeth." Many 
a woman will gnash her teeth at her husband and 
say : "Why did you laugh at my faith and 
ridicule my Church and my God till I forsook 
Him?" Many a husband will gnash his teeth at 
his wife and children and say: "Why did you 
cling together and oppose me and drive us all 
into this torment?" Many children will gnash 
their teeth at their parents and say : "Why did 
you not have us instructed in God's Word and 
confirmed? And why did you lead such ungodly 
lives as to make us believe that Christianity was 
a fraud?" Thousands upon thousands will gnash 
their teeth at the preachers and say : "Why did 
you not warn us of this place and tell us that 
Jesus died to save us? Why did you not tell us 
to turn or burn? You miserable wretches, if we 
could add anything to your torments, we would 
grind you with our gnashing teeth!" 

To this another misery will be added — the 
remembrance of God's love. God tells us that 
every knee shall bow before Him. Rom. 14, 11. 



GOD FINDS YOU LOST. 49 

We shall all see Jesus on the Judgment Day. If 
men could go to hell without knowing that Jesus 
was their Savior, it would be a comfort in all 
their miseries to know that they could not help 
it. But it shall not be so. The hell of hells will 
be this : "I might have been saved, but would not. 
The last I saw before I came into this torment 
was my rejected Savior. I bowed my knees to 
Him and left Him forever.' 7 Then your own con- 
science will start up an everlasting cry of re- 
morse. 

Now, immortal soul, you have heard of the 
marks and miseries of the lost. Would you not 
rather hear of hell than feel it? Can you blame 
me for telling you and warning you in time? 
Don't you understand now that it must be a lov- 
ing God who cries to you : "Prepare to meet thy 
God?" Do you not see now that you cannot for 
the whole world put off any longer your prepara- 
tion to meet God? Before I leave you, I must 
tell you that Jesus Christ, the God man, died to 
save you, and now says : "The Son of man is 
come to seek and to save that which was lost." 
Luke 19, 10. "He that believeth and is baptized 
shall be saved, but he that believeth not shall be 
damned." Mark 16, 16. God wants lost souls to 
prepare to meet Him. Amen. 

4 



IV. GOD HAS SALVATION FOR YOU 

THEKE is a God and that God is your God, 
and your God finds you lost. In my last 
discourse I showed you the marks and the 
miseries of the lost. This evening I have good 
news for the lost. God has salvation for you, or 
He would not ask you to prepare to meet Him. 
Let me impress on you this hour that God has a 
beautiful home in heaven; that He has a Way 
leading to that home; and that He has a way 
leading to that Way. 

"Thy Word is a lamp unto my feet and a 
light unto my path." Father, Son and Holy 
Ghost, help me now to hold up Thy lamp and 
show lost souls Thy salvation. Amen. 

1. God has a home for you in heaven. "All 
Scripture is given by inspiration of God and is 
profitable for doctrine, for reproof, for correc- 
tion, for instruction in righteousness: that the 
man of God may be perfect, thoroughly fur- 
nished unto all good works." 2 Tim. 3, 15-17. 
Some seem to think that preaching of heaven is 
useless. Our reply is brief : The Bible speaks of 
heaven about seven hundred times, and all Scrip- 
ture is given by inspiration and is profitable. 

50 



GOD HAS SALVATION FOR YOU. 51 

If we knew more of heaven, as God wants us to, 
it would be profitable to us. If we expect to go 
to some distant city or land, how we try to learn 
all we can about that land before we start ! Yea, 
do we not hear much of foreign lands even before 
we can desire to visit them? We cannot hear 
too much of heaven and hell in this short life of 
ours. A few thoughts now on heaven. 

It is & place for you to lay up treasures. 
Christ says: "Lay not up for yourselves treas- 
ures on earth, where moth and rust doth cor- 
rupt, and where thieves break through and steal ; 
but lay up for yourselves treasures in. hea- 
ven, where neither moth nor rust doth cor- 
rupt, and where thieves do not break through 
nor steal : for where your treasure is, there will 
your heart be also." Matt. 6, 19-21. Are you 
laying up any treasures in heaven? I fear not. 
Let us see. Where your heart is there is your 
treasure. Is your heart on tobacco or truth? 
rum or rest? fashions or faith? silver or saints? 
acres or angels? jewels or Jesus? earth or eternal 
life? gold or God? Where your heart is there 
your treasure is. Could any one but a fool 
choose the earthly treasures in preference to the 
heavenly? We say of a very wealthy man when 
he dies : "He was a millionaire." Yes, he was, 
but what is he now? What is a man with all 



52 PREPARE TO MEET THY GOD. 

his earthly treasures in the hour of death when 
he has no treasures in heaven? You are here 
to lay up treasures in heaven, and not on earth. 

Ten times God says in His Word that the 
names of His children are written in the Book of 
Life. Some of you, before you started to the 
great World's Fair, had your names written 
there and your rooms secured. Is your name 
written in heaven? Have you made no prepara- 
tions for your journey into eternity? See to it 
at once that your name is treasured up in heaven. 

See to it also that your family is treasured 
up in heaven. It is not your calling to lay up 
treasures here on earth for your children, but, I 
fear, that is what you have been doing. You 
have been so kind to your family that you have 
deprived yourself of the comforts of life in order 
to hand each son and daughter a beautiful 
earthly treasure ; and now you feel that you have 
done your duty. You have mistaken the treas- 
ure. God gave you your family not to lay up 
for them, but to lay them up for heaven. "The 
promise is unto you and to your children." Acts 
2, 39. Earthly treasures should be given to chil- 
dren who are themselves heavenly treasures, 
that both may be laid up for heaven. 

This leads me to another thought: Our 
wealth should be laid up in heaven. Money is 



GOD HAS SALVATION FOR YOU. 53 

a gift of God and only love of it is the root of all 
evil. Gold and silver are creatures of God as 
well as man. It is no sin to be wealthy, but it is 
a sin not to consecrate our wealth to God. This 
is a great lesson for the Christian Church to 
learn today. We must stop giving our wealth 
to the devil. It may be all right to wear a ring, 
but it does not look right for fingers covered 
with gold and diamonds to give coppers for 
missions. It does not look right for a man to 
boast of his wealth when it is not used to spread 
God's kingdom. A man's name, family and 
wealth should be treasured up in heaven. There 
it can remain forever. There will be no moth 
nor rust, nor thieves. 

Heaven is a place for you. How do I know. 
God says so. "In my Father's house are many 
mansions: if it were not so, I would have told 
you. I go to prepare a place for you." John 14, 
2. God is there. He tells us to pray: "Our 
Father who art in heaven." God the Father is 
there ; God the Son is there ; God the Holy Ghost 
is there. Angels are there. Saints are there; 
and still there is room. There are many man- 
sions, but only one house. The gate of heaven 
is wide enough for all the world. "God so loved 
the world that He gave His only begotten Son 
that whosoever believeth in Him should not per- 



54 PREPARE TO MEET THY GOD. 

ish, but have everlasting life." John 3, 16. But 
do not imagine that because the gate of heaven 
is wide enough for the world that, therefore, the 
unregenerated can easily enter. "Except a man 
be born again he cannot see the kingdom of 
God." There is room in heaven for all the re- 
generated. There is not room in heaven for one 
unregenerated person. And even if there were, 
none would be found there. When the unregen- 
erated must be pulled into divine services on 
earth because they feel uneasy where a service 
is holy, how would they feel in heaven? Even 
if it were possible for an unregenerated soul to 
enter heaven, his eternity would nevertheless 
be a hell. Every man can be regenerated and 
then there is room for him in heaven. 

Heaven is also a place of rest. "Thereremain- 
eth therefore a rest to the people of God." Heb. 
4, 9. This is no place to rest. Here we are to 
earn our bread by the sweat of our face. Here 
there is so much to do that we must work while 
it is day, for the night cometh when no man can 
work. John 9, 4. The harvest is ripe and the 
laborers are few. Here we sigh and moan ; here 
we tremble and fall; here we are tired. In hea- 
ven there is rest. There we "shall sit down with 
Abraham, Isaac and Jacob," and knowing them, 
we shall know our own; and whether we shall 



GOD HAS SALVATION FOR YOU. 55 

know them or not, God tells us, "we shall be sat- 
isfied." Ps. 65, 4. What a rest that will be 
when in all eternity we shall be satisfied! 

Thus, if God has a home for you where you 
can lay all your heavenly treasures forever, and 
where you may have rest in your mansion pre- 
pared for you, do you not see another reason 
why you should prepare to meet your God? To 
do this, you will please to notice 

2. Secondly, that God has a Way leading 
to heaven. Without a way He would not ask 
you to meet Him. Let me show you the Way. 
God created angels, blessed spirits; and irra- 
tional animals, flesh and bone; and man, flesh, 
bone and soul. An angel rebelled, was hurled 
from heaven, took the form of a serpent and 
struck his sinful fangs into the heart of the hu- 
man race. The merciful God at once promised 
that He would crush that serpent's head by be- 
coming man. Gen. 3, 15. He told the prophets 
that through Him all the nations of the earth 
should be blessed. He told Isaiah that He would 
be born of a virgin and that He would be "Won- 
derful, Counsellor, the mighty God, the everlast- 
ing Father, the Prince of Peace." He told Zach- 
ariah that He would ride into Jerusalem on an 
ass. One night an angel said to the shepherds : 
Fear not, for behold I bring you good tidings of 



56 PREPARE TO MEET THY GOD. 

great joy, which shall be to all people. For unto 
you is born this day in the city of David a 
Savior which is Christ, the Lord; and then the 
heavenly host sang : "Glory to God in the high- 
est, and on earth peace, good will toward nien." 
Luke 2. Jesus Christ, the Son of God, was now 
man. Satan hounded Him till he saw the Son 
of God nailed to the cursed tree on Calvary. 
Little did Satan know that the death of Jesus 
would crush his own head. But so it was. Jesus 
paid our debt and rose again and now when we 
have Him by faith we have the old Way, the only 
Way, and the safe Way. Jesus said : "I am the 
Way, the Truth, and the Life : no man cometh to 
the Father but by Me." By Him all in heaven 
have been saved. The patriarchs and prophets 
were saved by the promised Savior and we 
through the crucified Savior. His promised re- 
demption was as powerful as His past redemp- 
tion. 

And He is the only Way. "None can come 
to the Father but by Me." "Neither is there 
salvation in any other; for there is none other 
name under heaven given among men whereby 
we must be saved." Acts 4, 12. There were 
many religions represented in the Religious Con- 
gress of Chicago, but only one that told a poor 
sinner how to reach heaven. An old man was 



GOD HAS SALVATION FOR YOU. D i 

walking over a river today on an only log and 
a man took an ax and stepped between him and 
the further shore and tried to cut the log in two 
to drop him into the river. Did he succeed? No! 
The log was harder than the ax, but it did show 
how mean the rascal was. Do you want to know 
his name? It is the infidel who would try and 
break down your only way to reach heaven. 

Jesus is a safe Way. A few years ago I 
visited the Yellowstone National Park, about 
sixty miles long. I hired a pony and rode to the 
Falls and back. When I started I asked the way 
and this was the reply I received: "There is 
only one way; stay on it and you cannot miss 
it." Off I started, over hills, through valleys, 
along the cliffs, past geysers, to the Falls — 
alone, but safe, for there was only one way. Pil- 
grims, are you alone? Do you not know the 
way? You can make no mistake. Jesus says : 
"I am the Way, the Truth, and the Life : no man 
cometh to the Father, but by Me. 1 ' This Way is 
safe. Every one in heaven has gone by this Way. 
I have stood by the bedside of many who had 
been on this Way and now were near the end, 
and they would not leave it. No man ever re- 
pented for having been a Christian. 

3. Notice, finally, that God has a way to 
lead to that Way. What good would heaven do 



58 PREPARE TO MEET THY GOD. 

us and a way to heaven, if we did not know how 
to reach that Way? But we do know. God has 
appointed the means of grace, the Word and 
Holy Sacraments, as the Way. 

We must hear of the Way. For "how shall 
they believe in Him of whom they have not 
heard? Eom. 10, 14. Mark what I say: If you 
are not willing to go to the house of God and 
hear His preaching ; if you have not time to read 
or hear His Word at home ; if you are not willing 
to study your catechisms gleaned from God's 
Word; if you are so reckless and careless as to 
prefer darkness to light and ignorance to knowl- 
edge — then you cannot find the way. But you 
have heard of the way already ; you hear it now : 
Jesus is the Way. 

Next, you must leave your old way, if you 
want to get on the new way. You cannot walk 
on two streets at one time, nor can you walk 
with Jesus and keep hold of the devil. Oh, how 
willing some of you would be to follow Christ 
if He were going to hell ! If you want to get on 
the way that reaches heaven you must say to 
your sinful comrades : "Come with me now, or 
farewell forever!" 2 Cor. 6, 14-18. 

You must get on the way to heaven. But 
do not think for a moment that your good works 
will take you there, for you have none until grace 



GOD HAS SALVATION FOR YOU. 59 

renews your heart, and then you will think only 
of grace and not of works. To get on the way 
you must let the Holy Spirit do His work. You 
must repent. You must be sorry for your sins 
and believe in Jesus Christ. "By grace are ye 
saved through faith ; and that not of yourselves : 
it is the gift of God, not of works, lest any man 
should boast." Eph. 2, 8. 9. Washed in the 
baptismal wave sing : 

"In my hands no price I bring 
Simply to Thy cross I cling." 

You have now heard that God has salvation 
for you. Now you will see better what Jesus 
means when He says: "Prepare to meet thy 
God!" 

A few years ago there was a murderer in 
the Pennsylvania prison. His friends tried hard 
to have him pardoned, for he had been found 
guilty of death. The Governor was a Christian 
and said the law must take its course. One 
morning a stranger appeared at the door of his 
cell with the sheriff. He told the prisoner to 
prepare to meet his God and left. Afterwards 
he asked the sheriff who that stranger was. 
"That was Governor Pollock." The prisoner 
wrung his hands and wept bitterly and said: 



60 PREPARE TO MEET THY GOD. 

"Why didn't you tell me?" O prisoners of sin, 
I now tell you : The King is here ! Prepare 
to meet Him ! Amen. 



V. GOD REASONS WITH YOU 

ACHKISTIAN, strong in the faith, is one to 
whom you can go at any time and tell 
him face to face what you think of him 
and he will thank you for your good intent and, 
the stronger he grows in his faith, the less he 
will think of backbiting. I stand here week after 
week and tell you what I think God wants me to 
say and I shall be thankful if, during the week, 
you tell me what you think God wants you to 
say to me. Our best friends are those who will 
befriend us in our absence and tell us of our 
faults in our presence. Let us learn this lesson 
now from our God. He gave Israel many reasons 
why they should have returned to Him, but they 
would not. Finally He went to them face to 
face and reasoned with them, and told them 
what He would do if they would not prepare to 
meet their God. 'Therefore thus will I do unto 
thee, O Israel : and because I will do this unto 
thee, prepare to meet thy God, O Israel!" Be- 
hold the controversy! The omniscient God rea- 
sons with ignorant man! He comes and sits 
down with us and says, "Come now and let us 
reason together." Isaiah 1, 18. 

61 



62 PREPARE TO MEET THY GOD. 

I have listened to the reasons of men for not 
preparing, and I have noticed a few of God's 
reasons why they should prepare to meet their 
God. Now let the controversy go on between 
man and his God; and, while it proceeds, let- 
Christians learn how to deal with their brothers 
— face to face — and others learn to prepare to 
meet their god. 

The first controversy. What has man to 
say? This : "I love my children and I could not 
for a moment think of giving one over to death, 
how then could a loving God give His only Son 
to die for us? If Christ was the Son of God 
then His Father must have had little love in His 
heart to give Him to be nailed to the cross." This 
is an argument I have often heard advanced by 
sinners in their blindness. Now let God reply: 
"I and My Father are One." John 10, 30. There 
are not two Gods but only One. When Jesus 
died, God manifest in the flesh died. The Father 
did not drive His Son to the cross against His 
will, but "God was in Christ reconciling the 
world unto Himself." 2 Cor. 5, 19. Many of our 
sons died in the last war. They fought to save 
their country. Did their parents not love them? 
Then why do you think God did not love Christ 
when He gave Him to save a perishing world? 
Herein is love, not that we loved God, but that 



GOD REASONS WITH YOU. 63 

He loved us, and sent His Son to be the propitia- 
tion for our sins. John 1, 10. The victory is 
God's! 

Second Controversy. Man, what have you 
to say now? This: "If I had the most wicked 
son on earth I could never give my consent to 
have him punished forever; how then can God, 
who is love, condemn me forever, if I do not be- 
lieve in Him? Have I a better heart than God?" 

Let God answer briefly : "He that believeth 
on Him is not condemned : but he that believeth 
not is condemned already because he hath not 
believed in the name of the only begotten Son of 
God." John 3, 18. "The Son of man is come to 
seek and to save that which was lost.'' Luke 19, 
10. You are condemned now, if you have not 
been saved. Your sins have condemned you. 
Christ has come to save you. Without Him you 
are everlastingly lost; and only through Him 
can you ever be saved. He laid down His life 
for you ; and, if you still think He does not love 
you, you are condemning yourself. God so loved 
the world that He gave His only begotten Son 
that whosoever believeth in Him should not 
perish but have everlasting life. John 3, 16. 
Again the victory belongs to God. 

Third Controversy. Let man speak again. 
What have you to say this time? This: 



64 PREPARE TO MEET THY GOD. 

"Many church members are hypocrites and I do 
not see that the best Christians are much better 
than I am. What great wrong have I done that 
I should prepare to meet my God?" 

And now Lord arise and speak : "There is 
none righteous, no, not one. There is none that 
understandeth, there is none that seeketh after 
God. They are all gone out of the way, they are 
together become unprofitable ; there is none that 
doeth good, no, not one." Eom. 3, 10-12. "There- 
fore by the deeds of the law there shall no flesh 
be justified in His sight: for by the law is the 
knowledge of sin." Rom. 3, 20. Without Christ 
no man can be saved. I am trying to serve my 
God and lead a Christian life, but, if I were a 
thousand times better than I am, I would still 
be lost without Christ. Christians are not saved 
by their goodness. Christ saves the lost. "But 
now the righteousness of God without the law is 
manifested, being witnessed by the law and the 
prophets; even the righteousness of God which 
is by faith of Jesus Christ unto all and upon all 
them that believe." Eom. 3, 21. 22. The victory 
belongs to God. 

Fourth Controversy. What next, O man? 
This : "I hear it preached that whosoever will, 
may come to God and that He will not reject 
anyone. I hear it preached that Thou canst save 



GOD REASONS WITH YOU. 65 

the worst of sinners. Now this, I maintain, is 
a bad doctrine : it will make the world worse 
and worse. We do not want a Savior for the 
worst people.'' 

Stop, O man, and let God speak. "Come 
now, and let us reason together, saith the Lord: 
though your sins be as scarlet, they shall be as 
white as snow; though they be red like crimson, 
they shall be as wool." Isaiah 1. IS. If I should 
not save the worst of sinners, how could I save 
you? If I could save only the saved, I would be 
no savior. But you know that the saved sinners 
are today the salt of the earth. Men do not sin 
because they have a great Savior, but because 
they have Him not. Do men have to become sick 
because they know of a good physician? Much 
less would one, delivered of his sin-sickness, love 
to sin again because God can forgive. The 
victory belongs to God. 

Fifth Controversy. What have you to say 
next, O man? This: "I wish God and His 
servants would let me alone. I know when I 
want to go to church and when I want to pre- 
pare to meet my God. I am tired of having 
others bothering their heads about me. The 
truth of it is, I am angry, and I don't care to 
talk any longer." 



66 PREPARE TO MEET THY GOD. 

God speaks: "You are angry. Kom. 3, 21. 
I love you. John 3, 16. Your mouth is full of 
cursing and bitterness. Rom. 3, 14. My ser- 
vants pray for you. You are going to destruc- 
tion. Rom. 3, 16. I have come to show you the 
way to heaven. Matt. 7, 13. 14. You do not 
know the way of peace. Rom. 3, 17. I am the 
Prince of Peace. Isaiah 9, 6. You have no fear 
of me. Rom. 9, 18. I fear you do not know that 
you are angry at your best friends. What greater 
proof could you ask for your unreasonableness 
than to become angry at your friends? Have 
you forgotten that the vanquished become 
angry? Do you not see that your disposition is 
proving the great necessity of preparing to meet 
your God?" The victory belongs to God. 

Sixth Controversy. Speak again, O man! 
"I am ready to speak. I believe in a hell, too, 
but this life is hell enough. When I do a wrong 
I suffer for it. If my laboring and sweating and 
suffering is not hell, I do not know of any." 

Now what shall God say? He tells us that 
He scourges every son whom He receiveth, and 
that we must through much tribulation enter 
the kingdom of heaven. If God scourges His sons 
and leads us into His kingdom through tribula- 
tion, then there can be no hell in this life, for 
then His children would be in hell. Besides. 



GOD REASONS WITH YOU. 67 

many who lead lives of sin are prospering in this 
world, while saints are suffering very much. 
This is not the exception, but the rule. The 
punishments of this life are a strong proof that 
there must be a better life for the righteous, and 
a greater punishment for the unbeliever after 
death. Do you mean to say that that suffering 
Christian mother is now in hell and that healthy 
scoundrel is in heaven? The victory belongs to 
the Lord. 

Seventh Controversy. The sinner says : "I 
am doing the best I can. I am giving my child- 
ren a good education. I am a sober man. I pay 
my debts. I give to the poor. I never refuse to 
give money to the Church when asked for it. I 
am no Christian, but I am trying to do the best 
I can." 

What has God to say? This: " 'What shall 
it profit a man if he shall gain the whole world 
and lose his own soul?' You are not doing the 
best you can, but the very worst you can. I 
gave you children to bring them to Me and you 
never told them who I am. I created you, re- 
deemed you, and sent my Holy Spirit to call, 
gather, enlighten, sanctify and to keep you, but 
you do not want to know Me. You give to the 
Church and despise the Word of God and the 
holy Sacraments. You have built a house and a 



68 PREPARE TO MEET THY GOD. 

barn, but you are laying up no treasures in 
heaven. You have strong faith in yourself, but 
none in Me. You are doing the very worst you 
can — rejecting your only Savior." The victory 
belongs to God. 

Eighth Controversy. Mr. Wiseneighbor 
speaks : "I am a Spiritualist. You laugh at me 
and say that I have been deceived, but I tell you 

1 have talked with members of my own family 
who have passed over into the spirit world, and 
you may say what you please, I know that voice 
when I hear it." 

"And for this cause God shall send them 
strong delusions that they should believe a lie; 
that they all might be damned who believed not 
the truth, but had pleasure in unrighteousness." 

2 Thess. 2, 11. 12. Of course there is such a thing 
as spiritualism, and I am not at all surprised 
that that old spirit that made Eve believe that 
he was a serpent, can now so imitate your 
mother's voice that you think you hear her. Has 
spiritualism raised Lazarus, or fed five thousand 
with five loaves? Let me see: who are the 
mediums in your city? Would you like to have 
such characters for mothers and sisters? Did 
you not think of that before? 

Ninth Controversy. Let the aged father 
speak: "I am old and gray. I wish I had 



GOD REASONS WITH YOU. 69 

entered God's vineyard when young. I see now 
that if I had served my God better, my children 
would have served me better. I sowed in sin 
and now I am reaping the harvest. I like to see 
children go to church and serve God, but I am 
too old — too old." 

Let God speak: "Thou fool, this night thy 
soul shall be required of thee." Luke 12, 20. If 
it is necessary for children to prepare to meet 
their God when at the beginning of life, how 
much more is it necessary for you at the gates 
of eternity to do so ! Stop now and say : "God 
be merciful to me, a sinner!" Trust now in the 
blood of Jesus! Oh aged father, there is only 
one thing for you to do in this life; act before 
it is too late — prepare to meet thy God. 

The last controversy. Have you anything 
more to say to your God, O man? Sum up 
the whole matter in a few words. 

"I notice, Lord, that many Lutherans ad- 
vocate parochial schools, oppose secret societies 
and do not invite all professed Christians to the 
Lord's Supper; is this Thy will?" 

Lord, speak: "With regard to schools, 
'The fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom 
and the knowledge of the holy is understanding.' 
Prov. 9, 10. 'And ye fathers provoke not your 
children to wrath; but bring them up in the 



70 PREPARE TO MEET THY GOD. 

nurture and admonition of the Lord.' Eph. 6, 4. 
'Feed My lambs.' John 21, 15. This is what the 
Lutherans want to do with their parochial 
schools." 

"As to secret societies, 'In secret have I said 
nothing.' John 18, 20. 'For everyone that doeth 
evil hateth the light, neither cometh to the light, 
lest his deeds should be reproved. But he that 
doeth truth cometh to the light, that his deeds 
may be made manifest that they are wrought in 
God.' John 3, 20. 21. Men joining secret orders 
are asked to believe in a Supreme Being but not 
in the Father, Son and Holy Ghost. They take 
an oath which I have forbidden. Matt. 5, 34. 
They promise poor condemned souls help with- 
out a Savior. Their prayers are mockery, for 
My name is not in them. It is a religion without 
'Christ crucified' that pleases the devil. Any 
religion that will not save souls will help damn 
them. Christians must come out of all Christ- 
less religions. Paul preached the same as the 
Lutherans." 2 Cor. 6, 14-18. 

"As to My Supper : Lutherans must invite 
whom I want, not whom others want. Those 
who have nothing but bread and wine have a 
supper of their own and can invite whom they 
please, but the Lutherans have My Supper and 
they let me invite whom I want. I do not want 



GOD REASONS WITH YOU. 71 

those to come to My Supper who think they re- 
ceive nothing but bread and wine, for they would 
thereby eat and drink their own damnation. r 
1 Cor. 11, 29. 

Dear soul, do not ask what men say; do not 
do as men do; do not think that Satan hates re- 
ligion, for he asked Jesus to worship him; but 
go to God's Word and ask what He says and give 
Him and His loving truth the victory. Amen. 



VI. GOD WARNS YOU 

AND now my message to you is nearly done. 
God asks me once more to awaken your 
soul to listen to the Inspired Bell as it 
tolls with warning tones : "Prepare to meet thy 
God.- ' Every warning God gives you is through 
His Word: through it He warns you with His 
visitations, with the eternal mistakes of others, 
with your own narrow escapes, with His com- 
mand, once more. 

1. God warns you first with His visitations. 
In verses six to ten God calls Israel's attention 
to the fact that He had warned them with fam- 
ines, drouths, insects, pestilence and wars, and 
yet they had not returned to Him. Today He 
must say the same to us. I knew a physician 
who, when he would see a thunderstorm ap- 
proaching, would go to bed and draw the covers 
over his head that he might not see the light- 
ning's flash nor hear the crash, but at last he 
dropped dead on the highway when the earth 
was covered with the white blanket of snow. 
Thus, when God's visitations approach us, we 
try our best not to see the brightness of His face, 
nor to hear the thunder of His warning, but now 

72 



GOD WARNS YOU. 73 

He finds us at this very spot and makes us hear. 
"And I also have given you cleanness of teeth in 
all your cities, and want of bread in all your 
places; yet have ye not returned unto Me, saith 
the Lord." 

Does this not ring like a warning bell in our 
city, and in the cities of the world, this evening? 
When there is no bread to eat no crumbs need 
to be picked from the teeth. I tell you on good 
authority, for I can take you to such homes in 
five minutes, that there are families in this city 
that have not a bite of bread in the house. While 
I am speaking, the poor are groaning in every 
large city in the world. What does this mean? 
Blind politicians tell us that the other party is 
the cause. Our homes are forgetting God. Fa- 
thers and mothers have left the altar of God 
and have run to clubs, lodges, saloons, and balls, 
and have left their children to go to the devil, 
and the good Lord cannot bear it any longer to 
see families go to hell with full stomachs and no 
knowledge of Him. So He now pulls the bell of 
famine and rings into our ears : "Prepare to 
meet thy God!" Oh, what an unthankful world! 
You unthankful souls, I am surprised that God 
has not starved you long ago ! 

When it does not rain for awhile and your 
crops yield no harvest, you think you had bad 



74 PREPARE TO MEET THY GOD. 

luck and that it just happened so. You posi- 
tively know that God has nothing to do with 
the rain and you know just as positively that you 
do not serve your God and He knows it and He 
will make you feel it. You plant again and no 
harvest. What shall you do? Move? Yes! 
Move to prepare to meet your God! "And also 
I have withholden the rain from you, when there 
were yet three months to the harvest and I 
caused it to rain upon one city, and caused it 
not to rain upon another city: one piece was 
rained upon, and the piece whereupon it rained 
not withered. So two or three cities wandered 
into one city, to drink water; but they were not 
satisfied; yet have ye not returned unto Me, saith 
the Lord. v Vs. 7 and 8. 

You plant potatoes and the bugs eat them. 
You sow clover and grasshoppers eat it. You 
plant grapes and the insects sting them. You 
plant trees and the worms destroy them. Every- 
thing seems to be against you. What is the mat- 
ter. The world is against God. Prosperity has 
made the world deaf. If they will not listen to 
His sharp Word they must feel the sting of the 
hornet. A young man was running as fast as 
he could. A hornet stung him in the eye and 
stopped him. If he had run ten steps further he 
would have stepped on a boa constrictor. God now 



GOD WARNS YOU. 75 

warns you to prepare to meet your God before 
you step into the presence of that old serpent of 
hell. "I have smitten you with Masting and 
mildew; when your gardens and your vineyards 
and your -fig trees and your olive trees increased 
the pal in -worm devoured them; yet have ye not 
returned unto Me, saith the Lord/ 7 V. 9. Death 
is reaping a great harvest again. Cholera is 
coming; consumption is riding the swift steed of 
la grippe from city to city and from home to 
home. Miasma is softly creeping over the side- 
hills and into our houses and bodies. Pesti- 
lence, with his coat of many colors, is taking 
a tour around the world. Swords are now flash- 
ing and ready to flash. That generation never 
lived that did not know of present wars. Men 
of great minds tell us that these little wars of 
smaller governments today are but sparks of the 
greatest battles, soon to be fought, in the history 
of the world. When death and wars sweep 
thousands upon thousands into eternity, should 
you not prepare to meet your God? He says so : 
"I have sent among you the pestilence after the 
manner of Egypt; your young men have I slain 
with the sword and have taken away your horses; 
and I have made the stink of your camps to come 
up into your nostrils: yet have ye not returned 
unto Me, saith the Lord' 3 V. 10. 



76 PREPARE TO MEET THY GOD. 

2. God also warns you with the mistakes 
of others, unknown and known. He calls our 
attention to Sodom and Gomorrah. With the 
exception of a few we do not know who lived 
there, but one thing is certain: they were a 
wicked people and would not listen to God's 
Word ; and, when the brimstone fell and burned 
those cities and the inhabitants, they suffered no 
more than they do tonight in hell. They made 
an eternal mistake. Many a man whom you do 
not know has made an eternal mistake by wait- 
ing to prepare to meet his God. But not only 
the unknown have made such a mistake. God 
says: "I have overthrown some of you as God 
overthrew Sodom and Gomorrah." You have no 
fault to find with me when I tell you that Judas 
Iscariot was lost, but when I tell you that one 
of your own family made the eternal mistake of 
not preparing to meet his God you do not like it. 
But whether you like it or not, I fear that "some 
of you" have already made the eternal mistake. 
Shall you be among their number? Do you not 
know that Dives in hell did not want his five 
brothers to come into that "place of torment?" 
Should not the fearful, eternal, mistakes of the 
damned be a warning to you to prepare to meet 
your God? O sinner, will nothing waken you 



GOD WARNS YOU. 77 

up but the wail of the lost? Is there nothing to 
melt your cold heart but the flames of hell? 

3. But God gives you a third warning: 
your own narrow escapes — "and ye were as a 
firebrand plucked out of the burning: yet have 
ye not returned unto Me, saith the Lord" V. 11. 

Is it not a wonder that you are living now? 
Do you not remember that hour when you be- 
came conscious of what you had just passed 
through and you thought to yourself : How did 
I escape death. "And ye were as a firebrand 
plucked out of the burning/' or you would be 
dead now. If you never thanked God before, 
stop now and thank Him that you are not in 
hell. Once, twice, three times, many times, His 
guardian angel snatched you from the jaws of 
death and held you up as a burning brand to 
give you a little more time to prepare to meet 
your God. You shall not always escape. You 
possibly dreamed one night that you had died 
in your sins and Oh ! how happy you were in the 
morning to find that it was but a dream. Time 
has passed and you are still in your sins. Your 
narrow escapes are a loud warning to you to 
prepare to meet your God, for soon your dream 
may be a reality. 

4. And now I take my text as the command 
of God and by the help of the Holy Spirit press 



78 PREPARE TO MEET THY GOD. 

it closely to your soul and warn you once more, 
loudly, plainly, personally, decisively, intelli- 
gently : "Prepare to meet thy God." God can- 
not warn you forever. The last warning must 
come : This may be the last. This much is true : 
God warns you once more! 

Next to Christ's "Eli, Eli, lama, sabach- 
thani!" on the cross, I know of no passage in the 
Bible that rings louder in my ears than this text. 
If every star were a trumpet and the sun and 
moon were golden and silver bells and the angels 
of heaven should blow and ring, the impression 
should not be as loud on your ears as when God 
thunders: "Prepare to meet thy God!" 

How plain the message! Five little words 
that any child could understand. "Prepare" — 
do something ; "to meet" — God is coming ; "thy 
God" — you and your God will soon stand face 
to face. 

The message means you personally. If I 
said : "Meet me here tomorrow," you would know 
that I did not mean some one, but the ones I 
address. When God spoke to Israel, He said : "O 
Israel," and when He gave Israel the Gospel He 
gave it for the world. Mark 16, 15. God means 
you, little child, young man, young Avoman, 
young parents, aged, dying grandfathers and 



GOD WARNS YOU. 79 

grandmothers : you He wants to prepare to meet 
Him. 

His warning is decisive. You have no choice 
in the matter if you would escape the wrath to 
come. God will not give you His consent to be 
lost. He will not force you into heaven, but He 
cannot ask you to do as you please. He cannot 
even hint that you may disobey Him. Would a 
mother let her child choose between her lap and 
the fire? Could a loving God, whose heart of 
love has the universe inside of it, unconcernedly 
let you choose between heaven and hell? There- 
fore, He tells you decisively what the only thing 
is for you to do: "Prepare to meet thy God." 
He warns you intelligently. God is God and you 
are a man. Man must meet his God. His Word 
tells you what to do. You must go to His Word 
and find out who you are and how you stand in 
His sight. You must go to His Word and find 
out who God is and how you can be reconciled 
with Him. And do not be selfish. You would 
not think of learning how to make a shoe with- 
out going to a master and learning. Jesus 
taught His disciples three years and then Judas 
was not prepared, and Peter, weak Peter, "wept 
bitterly." You can be a child of God in a mo- 
ment, but it may take a long time till you are 
prepared for that moment. Do not be satisfied 



80 PREPARE TO MEET THY GOD. 

with an ignorant profession of religion. God 
wants you to prepare. Go to His servants and 
learn. If I wanted to know law, I should go to 
a lawyer. If I wanted to know how to become 
a doctor of medicine, I should go to a good 
physician. And if you want to prepare to meet 
your God, buy Luther's catechism and a Bible 
and go to a Lutheran pastor, or have him come 
to you, and let him show you in a few months 
what he has found in many years. Strange, 
indeed, that you should be willing to spend years 
to prepare to work at a trade a short time, and 
then think, to prepare for eternity — it can be 
done in a few minutes. The three thousand who 
were converted in one day, the day of Pentecost, 
forgot more of God's Word before that day than 
many so-called Christians know today. "Search 
the Scriptures,'' says Jesus.* 

Let me lay down a few plain rules for pre- 
paring intelligently to meet God. 

1. Kemember God can speak. You can 
speak and your God can do what His creature 
can. You could not think of God as not being 
able to speak. 

2. God is your Father and a father would 



*Read 'The Way Made Plain" just published by the 

author. 



GOD WARNS YOU. 81 

speak to his children. God is King, but a king 
lets his subjects know who he is. 

3. God has spoken. Every book has an 
author. Over forty inspired men who wrote the 
Bible deny that they are the authors. "Holy 
men of God spake as they were moved by the 
Holy Ghost." 2 Pet. 1, 21. The Bible has but 
one Author, yet its writings occupy nearly 1500 
years of time. That Author is your God. 

4. Your God tells you that your soul is 
worth more than all the world. "For what shall 
it profit a man if he shall gain the whole world, 
and lose his soul?" Mark 8, 36. Think much of 
your soul's value. God calls it a jewel. Mai. 3, 17. 
Do not let your valuable soul be lost in sin, for 
you, from God. 

5. If you are not prepared to meet your 
God now, even though you could gain the whole 
world in one hour, you would not have the time. 
"But seek ye first the kingdom of God, and His 
righteousness; and all these things shall be 
added unto you." Matt. 6, 33. Only such a de- 
ceiver as Satan could make you believe that 
there is plenty of time to prepare to meet your 
God. 

6. Seek the better acquaintance with your 
God and yourself. God knows Himself and you. 



82 PREPARE TO MEET THY GOD. 

You may think a great deal of yourself and 
others may think you are great — God knows you 
are a poor sinner. Do not rest till you have 
God's answer to this question : "How can I be 
reconciled and united with Thee, O God?" 

7. A good citizen must know the laws of 
his country. He who wants to prepare to meet 
his God must learn God's law, the ten command- 
ments. "I had not known sin, but by the law." 
Rom. 7, 7. When man thinks he is converted 
and does not know the law, he is miserably per- 
verted. Learn the commandments and then you 
will have learned two valuable lessons ; namely : 
you are a sinner and you know now the works 
that are pleasing to God. 

8. But you cannot please God without 
faith. "Whatsoever is not of faith, is sin." 
Rom. 14, 23. "Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ, 
and thou shalt be saved, and thy house." Acts 
16, 31. You say that you know there is a God — 
so does the devil. You say you know that God 
can save us — so does the devil. Can you say 
that God is your Savior — the devil cannot say 
that. Learn the Apostolic Creed. Do not be 
afraid of creeds. Satan has made some people 
believe we should have no creed and by doing so 
got them to believe his creed. Whatever a man 
believes, that is his creed, and a Christian must 



GOD WARNS YOU. 83 

believe the Christian creed. Know what yon 
believe concerning- Father, Son, and Holy Ghost, 
and confess it and defend your faith. 

9. Through His Word the Holy Spirit 
conies to you. He comes through His Word 
alone, through His Word connected with water 
in baptism, and through His Word connected 
with bread and wine in the Lord's Supper. Use 
these means of grace without which you cannot 
be brought to Christ and cannot be prepared to 
meet your God. But you must also go to Him 
in prayer. Make prayer a study. Practice 
prayer. Do not think for a moment that all bab- 
bling is praying. I cannot draw your money out 
of the bank without your name, nor can you 
pray for gifts from heaven without Christ's 
name. " Verily, verily, I say unto you, Whatso- 
ever ye shall ask the Father in My name, He 
will give it to you. John 16, 23. God has only 
one Son — Christ, and that Son's children are 
the ones who were taught to say : "Our Father, 
who art in heaven." As a sinner, discovered by 
the law, forgiven by faith in Christ, pray to your 
Father in heaven to strengthen your faith. 

10. After God can say of you as He said 
of Saul, "Behold, he prayeth!" then remember 
that He accepts you as His child by Holy Bap- 
tism. "He that believeth and is baptized shall 



84 PREPARE TO MEET THY GOD. 

be saved." Some say that you must be immersed 
— God does not say so. Some say that you 
must be sprinkled — God does not say so. John 
baptized "with water." Christ said: "Except 
a man be born of water and the Spirit, he can- 
not enter the kingdom of God." John 3, 5. 

Study Luther's Catechism carefully and you 
will find that God's Word teaches that water — 
much or little — in the name of God, the Father, 
Son, and Holy Ghost, applied to believing adults, 
or infants, is baptism. "The promise is unto 
you and to your children." Acts 2, 39. "But 
whoso shall offend one of these little ones which 
believe in Me, it were better for him that a mill- 
stone were hanged about his neck, and that he 
were drowned in the depth of the sea." Matt. 
18, 6. Little infants can believe, or they can 
not. God says : "He that believeth not shall be 
damned." Which horn of the dilemma will you 
take? You must admit that God can kindle 
faith in an infant's heart, or that it must be 
damned. You will not take the latter, but agree 
with God when He says : "Baptize all nations." 
If you were baptized in infancy, thank God; if 
not, "arise and be baptized and wash away thy 
sins, calling on the name of the Lord." Acts 22, 
16. 



GOD WARNS YOU. 85 

11. The Lord wants you to come to His 
Supper. This will be a happy meeting. Three 
invitations are extended to you by different de- 
nominations. 

Invitation number one : "We, the Reformed 
churches, hereby invite all Christians in good 
standing to come to the Lord's table. We are 
all aiming for one place, and inasmuch as the 
bread and wine merely represent the body and 
blood of Christ, we promise you in the Lord's 
Supper only bread and wine" 

Invitation number two: "The One Holy 
Catholic Church, having authority, infallibility, 
and indefectibility, hereby announces that the 
Lord in His supper gives only body and blood 
— the body for the communicants and the blood 
for the priest." 

Invitation number three: "The Lutheran 
Church invites only those to the Lord's Supper 
whom the Lord invites. The Lord says He gives 
us bread and wine and body and blood, and 
further declares that those who think they re- 
ceive only bread and wine, eat and drink dam- 
nation to themselves. 1 Cor. 11, 29. As our re- 
ligion is not liberal enough to invite ignorant 
Christians to eat and drink damnation to them- 
selves; therefore we ask only those to come to 
the Lord's Supper who believe Him when He 



86 - PREPARE TO MEET THY GOD. 

says: "Take, eat; this is my body;" and "Take, 
drink; this is my blood." See Matthew, Mark r 
Luke and St. Paul on Lord's Supper. 

The three invitations are before you. Two 
must be wrong. Search God's Word and see 
what He says. To eat and drink at the Lord's 
table is a heavenly feast on earth. No wonder 
He Avants us to prepare to meet Him ! The Lu- 
therans believe as Christ and Paul did: "The 
cup of blessing which we bless, is it not the com- 
munion of the blood of Christ? The bread which 
we break, is it not the communion of the body 
of Christ?" 1 Cor. 10, 16. 

You say you cannot understand this. 

12. This leads me to the last rule, which 
should be first and last in your mind: Believe 
God. God does not ask you to understand Him, 
He wants you to believe Him. What you see 
with your own eyes requires no faith. We have 
no more right to say that bread represents 
Christ's body than we have to say that the Bible 
represents God's Word. Believe God when He 
speaks. Believe God, if all the world forsake 
Him. You have no right to add to or take away 
from God's Word. Rev. 22, 18, 19. 

And, now what more shall I say? If you 
are ready to prepare to meet your God, and any- 
thing I have said in my weakness has urged you 



GOD WARNS YOU. 87 

to take that step, I shall say : "Praise the Lord, 
our Savior and our God!" But should you still 
continue in that greatest of all sins, unbelief, the 
damning sin, then I could weep for myself for 
having delivered God's message so poorly, and 
for you because you will reject the only Savior, 
the Lord Jesus Christ. 

Jesus asks you to study His Word, 

Jesus your Savior, your God and your Lord. 

Your dear soul He has come to save this day — 

What do you say? 
He is rapping, your soul to save from hell. 
Shall He come? or shall Satan always dwell 
In your heart where there never shall be day? 

What do you say? 
Is there more than one thing for you to say, 
When all hell is night and heaven is day? 
There is not; but if you will delay, 

O Judgment Day! 

Amen. 



JAi^ 5 1909 



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